What I did in my christmas holiday...

...mostly sleep actually!
When I wasn't asleep, I was being excited over the parcel that turned up from Motad before christmas. Stainless cb400/4 downpipes, take 2. After much fiddling and swearing, they do in fact fit. Hooray!

...except the stub out the collector box is bigger than standard...bugger! The silencer is a lovely growly dunstall knock-off I got given when the original quite literally exploded. They rot from the inside, meaning often you'll see a pipe that is literally held together with the chrome plating. Then when someone tells you about making the bike backfire with the killswitch, it blows a sodding great hole out. Anyway, quick bit of surgery with a hacksaw and some hammers has it fitting. Only problem is it needs a little weld, and I have no welder. Yet.
Having proved it fits, I took it off again to polish it. You can't tell in that pic up there, but it had quite a rough, emery cloth finish-I'd told Motad to only do it rough to save money. Would have been cheaper and easier to get them to polish it I suspect, but oh well. I'm also spraying those manky fins and collets in heatproof black, after a dose of shotblaster. I'll give the engine a bit of a clean if and when it stops raining, should look lovely for the new year.
Below is the difference between polished and as they came:

The KH250 hasn't been ignored, but progress there is all small boring bits so no pics. Got some rather fetching braided lines from Hel, in purple :D Even better, I got some funky stickers...
Finally, I have yet another project running parallel. Not a bike this time, it actually has 4 wheels!

A 3 1/2" gauge Tich, a live steam toy train. Always wanted one or two of these big models, and a few years ago I got the drawings, frames and a few castings for this beginners design. Then last year I got a second, which was much more complete. That is what you see here. So far I've just cleaned and assembled what was there, to see what needs doing. As far as actually making bits for it...see the shiny silver bit on the front? The first bit I've made, and it took bloody hours! Only 3 more to do...:S
If you're feeling bored, the designer of this is worth looking up. His pen name was LBSC, real name Lillian "Curly" Lawrence. He wrote loads of articles for model engineer, and designed well over 50 model steam engines in various sizes and complexities. He was also very intolerant of criticism, and eccentric even for people who make toy trains. When I get round to my time machine I'd love to pop back to the early 60's and go for a pint with him.